At 6:24 AM -0800 9/21/00, Marion Gunn wrote:
>Arsa Antoine Leca:
>
>> <CITE>
>> Hindi, Hindustani, Urdu could be considered co-dialects, but
>>have important
>> sociolinguistic differences. Hindi uses the Devanagari writing system, and
>> formal vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit, de-Persianized,
>>de-Arabicized.
>> Literary Hindi, or Hindi-Urdu, has four varieties: Hindi (High
>>Hindi, Nagari
>> Hindi, Literary Hindi, Standard Hindi)...
>> </CITE>
>> from the online Ethnologue database, 13th ed.
>>
>><URL:http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Inda.html#HND>
>>
>
>Mm. Maybe a more polite (more PC) turn of phrase might be found than "could be
>considered co-dialects", which more than implies, it postulates the
>existence of a
>standard language referent of which the above "could" be considered dialects.
>
>Someone this week, I think it might have been on this list, spoke of
>languages as
>being "allied" to each other. I rather like that. Would it be acceptable to
>suggest replacing "co-dialects" with "allied languages"?
>mg

As long as nobody supposes that the speakers are supposed to be
allied. Consider